Thanato-Poetics and the Aesthetics of Dirge in Àsíkò and Bírípo Musical Performances

Abstract

The persistent tendency to read dirge primarily as an affective outpouring of grief has constrained scholarly engagement with its semiotic, ideological and aesthetic significance within Yorùbá oral performance traditions. This study, therefore, examines thanato-poetics and the aesthetics of dirge in Àsíkò and Bírípo musical performances among the Ìlàjẹ, Ìkálẹ̀, and Àpọ́ì of Ondo State, Nigeria. Anchored in a Gadamerian hermeneutic framework, it explores how dirge performances encode indigenous conceptions of death, transition and posthumous identity, and how these are aesthetically mediated through folk music. Through close textual analysis of selected dirge performances by Comfort Ọmọ́gẹ̀ (Àsíkò) and Ọnuréyẹ́ Arówójolú (Bírípo), the study demonstrates that stylistic devices and naming practices function as meaning-making strategies within a thanato-centric worldview. It further reveals that dirge performances articulate gendered experiences of loss, with particular emphasis on widowhood as a locus of intensified emotional and ideological expression. Moreover, the integration of lamentation with panegyrics reconfigures dirge as a performative space for negotiating grief and sustaining individual and communal identities in the face of mortality and modernity. By situating Àsíkò and Bírípo dirges within Yorùbá cosmology and the discourse of thanato-poetics, the study extends debates in African musicology and performance studies. It ultimately foregrounds death as an aesthetic and ideological principle of continuity.